Last weekend was a good weekend for me.
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It was an accident really but lots of my favourite things happened all at once. Well actually, it was just one of my favourite things happening over and over again.
I am not too sure whether to admit this. My husband thinks that the joy I find in finishing things and throwing away the empty containers is rather strange. But nothing satisfies me more than throwing a used item away.
I had been excited and a bit impatient for a while. You see, the toothpaste, my facial moisturiser, my facial cleanser, my deodorant, the furniture polish and my vitamin D tablets were all getting blissfully close to the end. I find it hard at this point not to speed up the process (OK I sometimes will slather on the cream a bit thicker than usual or clean my teeth a lot more often) but I had found myself in a state of anticipation for a week or so.
That’s what happens when you are near the end. Just when you think you will have it thrown away by garbage day, you find a few days worth more in the tube. (Even more disheartening is when the tube drags on for another week past garbage day.).
Every now and then I had to count the items on the way out, by way of controlling and understanding the frisson of pleasure I felt at the anticipated toss.
And then, I struck gold. Not one, but six items all went to container heaven on the one day. I think this must be what a dedicated pokie machine player must feel when the machine rolls around with a line of Jack of Hearts or whatever makes the clanging noises at the machines (clearly I am not a poker machine player).
I still get butterflies to think about it. If there is delight in seeing winning pictures in a row, there must obviously be delight in going to the cashier. And my cashier moment is stage two. Oh what bliss to see six new items set in place to replace the old. This is the money moment.
And for a while there will be pleasure in the fresh minty taste of the new toothpaste and the unclogged spraying capacity of the furniture polish, before they resume an ordinary place in the house. Until they are almost finished, that is.
- Linda Muller